Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
DESERT SHIELD
DESERT STORM
EDITORS FOREWORD
On Jan. 15, 1991, the United Nations ultimatum ordering Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait ran out. For
months, a coalition of nations had been staging a military buildup, preparing to launch an attack to take
back Kuwait. Now the coalition was ready.
By 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 17, airstrikes were hitting Baghdad. Operation Desert Storm had begun.
It was a watershed conflict.
To the surprise of many, the major conflict of the 20th centurys last decade was not between the Soviets
and the Americans, nor the Arabs and Israelis, but rather saw a worldwide coalition arrayed against an
Arab country that had invaded a smaller Arab neighbor.
The conflict was a showcase for technologies like precision munitions, stealth, night vision and other
sensors, C4ISR assets, and UAVs. Once considered the dominant military power in the region, Iraq was
totally outclassed and comprehensively defeated by these technologies and the tactics that leveraged
them. The result was that more American casualties were sustained in training than in the war itself.
According to some accounts, the overmatch of these Cold War-bred technologies against Iraqs Soviet
tactics and equipment helped convince the Soviet leadership that the Cold War was essentially lost,
bringing on the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But overwhelming victories tend to provide more lessons to future opponents than the victors, and the
result was that during Operation Iraqi Freedom, a short, sharp conventional conflict developed into a
different kind of warfare, with the United States and its coalition partners facing an enemy with AK-47s,
RPGs, and IEDs in a long, difficult insurgency.
An even larger and more difficult insurgency continues today in Afghanistan, and the tactics of
unconventional warfare employed by that insurgency speak to the success of Operation Desert Storm 20
years ago: Knowing that a traditional confrontation against todays coalition would be doomed, terrorist
organizations have resorted to a shadowy sort of battle, one in which by design they make themselves
hard to pin down and defeat. That the conflicts of today reflect the lessons learned from Operation Desert
Storm should in no way devalue the achievement of two decades ago, when a western and pan-Arab
coalition came together to confront and force the headlong retreat of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
FOREWORD
Contents
Features
Republican Guard Nemesis
Feint and Deception Doomed Iraqi Units...................................................................................................... 44
By Clarence A. Robinson, Jr.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 3
STEALTH ATTACK
By then, the 12-plane first wave of F-117s was already 50 miles beyond Oklahoma. These F-117s reached
Baghdad while Saddams radars were still up and running and without being detected. Maj. Jerry Leatherman was in one of the F-117s. Leathermans job, like
that of another F-117 pilot ahead of him, was to bomb
the Baghdad International Telephone Exchange, known
to the F-117 pilots as the AT&T building because its real
Arabic name was unwieldy. Leatherman followed the
night eastward at 480 knots. He skirted the capital to at-
4 DE SE RT SHIE L D II D ES ERT S TO R M
tack from the north. He saw city lights, neon signs, the
snake-like Tigris River winding through the city. Sixty
SAM sites and 3000 antiaircraft guns encircled Baghdad
on this night. Almost all of them were shooting now.
Only later would Leatherman learn that, panicked, they
were shooting blind and not at him. At exactly 3:00
a.m., the F-117 in front of Leathermans hit the AT&T
Building with a GBU-27 bomb. On Leathermans scope,
the target abruptly glowed, hotter than adjacent office
towers and the nearby, tulip-shaped Iraqi Martyrs Monument. Leatherman pickled one minute later, splitting the
crosshairs on his display and blowing out the upper four
floors of the building. Leatherman peeled away to the
west, for the safety of the desert, and turned for home,
switching on heavy metal music from Def Leppard on his
Walkman. Behind him, Capt. Marcel Kerdavid swooped
down through a sky alive with fire and pickled a GBU27 through the Al Khark communications tower, to blow
the 370-foot spire apart at its mid-point. My biggest
fear was that I would survive, remembered Major Mike
Mahar, pilot of an F-117 in the second wave assaulting
Baghdad. Theyre all dead, I told myself. All the guys
who went in ahead of me have been shot down. If I live
through tonight, Ill be the only F-117 pilot who survived.
Everybody will ask why
Twenty minutes away from Saddam Husseins presidential retreat at Abu Ghurayb, I saw what looked like redorange explosions from bombs filling the landscape ahead.
But we didnt have any aircraft up there. I know, now, I was
looking at muzzle flashes from antiaircraft guns. The sky
around Mahar seemed to be full of fire. Flak detonated
above and below him, buffeting the F-117. No one had
ever seen such a nocturnal display of pyrotechnics, he remembers. With no spatial reference, it was impossible to
tell how far some of it was from my airplane. But it seemed
very close.
In fact, none of Mahars wingmen were dead, wounded,
or even scratched. As it would turn out, the F-117s firstgeneration, radar-evading stealth properties enabled it
Bitburg based F-15 Eagles flew straight to Saudi Arabia fully armed
for war.
AIR ACTION
It was the beginning of an air-to-air combat saga that
would be unprecedented in the history books. A Navy FA-18
Hornet lost that first night may have been the only American aircraft lost in air-to-air action (to an Iraqi MiG-25).
In contrast, the coalition shot down 44 Iraqi warplanes,
some of them attempting to flee to asylum inside Iraqs recent former enemy, Iran. A total of 37 were brought down
by Air Force F-15Cs, all but one of them in Kelks fighter
wing, and the Eagles sustained no losses. While an airlift
of unprecedented size continued to bring supplies and
arms to the bases built up by the coalition, Operation Desert Storm unleashed new strikes by sea-launched cruse
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 5
Above: On their way into the theater, Navy Tomcats brushed up on dissimilar air combat training with Royal Air Force Phantoms. Right: The old B-52s played a large part in the conflict,
firing cruise missiles and unloading almost a third of all bombs in the war.
ONGOING CAMPAIGN
Once the fighting was underway, it became apparent
that there would be no ground war immediately. But in the
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 7
8 DE SE RT SHIE L D II D ES ERT S TO R M
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 9
Air Force C-141 aircraft, plus C-130s, C-5s, and KC-10s, carried over a half
million passengers and as many tons of cargo.
10 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
GROUND WAR
The ground war began at 4:00 a.m., February 24, when the
1st and 2nd Marine Divisions (in the east of Saudi Arabia,
closer than other friendlies to Kuwait City) launched attacks through Iraqi border barriers of minefields, barbed
wire, oil-filled trenches, and artillery fire. In a daring helicopter assault, 2,000 men of the 101st Airborne Division
seized As Salman airfield 50 miles inside Iraq. The next day,
Army troops began maneuvering into the left hook that
trapped large numbers of Iraqis between two major forces.
Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs of
staff, had pointed to an Iraqi concentration during a
Publications, newsletters, articles, interviews you can now access them all in a single
place The defense media network brought to you
by Faircount, publishers of The Year in Defense.
If you are interested in advertising in Defense Media Network call Darren Lewis today at 813-639-1900
half page DMN new fnl.indd 1
2/22/11 2:35 PM
12 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
Opposite page: Since the Gulf War, the EA-6B has provided vital jamming
support, but is an aging platorm. Above: Though F-16s CJs can fulfill part
of its role, the retired F-4G Wild Weasel has not yet found a replacement.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 13
Ten years after Desert Storm, the old B-52 soldiers on as a power
projection platform.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 15
16 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
elements of a 16,800-man Marine Air Ground Task Force arriving on August 14.
The size and capabilities of these expanding forces focused the initial strategy identified by CENTCOM planners
on the deterrence of further Iraqi aggression and the defense
of Saudi Arabia and other friendly regional states. However,
with the failure of U.N. sanctions and the steady increase of
coalition force strength, coalition strategists began to focus
on the possibility of the offensive air, land, and sea operations
that would be necessary to eject Iraq from Kuwait.
This would eventually evolve to focus on several key theater military objectives. As identified in Operations Order
91-001, these objectives included the attack of Iraqi political-military leadership and command and control; gaining
and maintaining air superiority; severing Iraqi supply lines;
destroying known chemical, biological, and nuclear production, storage, and delivery capabilities; destroying Iraqi
Republican Guard Forces in the KTO; and the liberation of
Kuwait City.
While some of these key objectives called for an aerial
solution, others mandated the use of the expanding array of
coalition land force units and equipment.
EQUIPMENT TECHNOLOGIES
As the most important test of American arms in a quarter
of a century, Desert Storm coincided with the dawn of a new
technological era on the battlefield.
At one end of the technology spectrum, Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm saw the final combat participation by the Iowa-cass battleships USS Wisconsin and USS
Missouri. The ships were seen by many as floating Cold War
icons, with World War II ending on the same wooden decks
that were now being used to deliver lethal ordnance onto
Iraqi positions in occupied Kuwait.
On the other hand, the new era was characterized by the
broad introduction of combat technologies that included
Above: An M1A1 Abrams lays a smoke screen. The Abrams ruled the battlefield. Right: U.S. Marines man an M-19
grenade launcher equipped with a night vision sight. The American ability to fight at night was a major advantage.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 17
18 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 19
OFFENSIVE ACTIONS
With G-day officially beginning on February 24, 1991, the
ground campaign represented the combined efforts of land,
air, and sea elements to cut Iraqi lines of communications in
southeastern Iraq, to liberate Kuwait, and to destroy units
of the Iraqi leaders elite Republican Guard located in the
KTO. The operational concept involved a massive coordinated attack along parallel routes into Kuwait and Iraq with
an enormous left flanking attack through the Iraqi desert
that not only avoided prepared enemy strong points but also
trapped large elements of the Iraqi Army, presenting them
with the options of surrender or annihilation.
As noted above, coalition forces involved in the left
hook envelopment operation had actually been moving 24
hours a day for more than three weeks prior to G-day. The
movement process saw the westernmost grouping, led by
the XVIIIth Airborne Corps, move approximately 250 miles.
To their right, VIII Corps units moved more than 150 miles.
All in all, the movement of personnel and equipment during
20 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
this period reportedly exceeded that moved by General Pattons Third Army during World War IIs Battle of the Bulge.
By necessity, the movement of combat and combat support
systems had to be accompanied by the massive relocation of
logistic support assets. Although successfully performed by
the 22nd Support Command, the enormous relocation process helped to highlight a number of logistics hardware deficiencies for coalition planners (see following story).
G-DAY
G-day actions got their violent start at 0400 local time on
February 24 when 1 MEFs 1st Marine Division breached two
belts of obstacles and continued their attack toward the
airfield at Al-Jaber. Less than two hours later, the 2nd Marine Division repeated the breaching and attack process on
1st Divisions left flank. The Armys Tiger Brigade, equipped
with the highly lethal M1A1 Abrams main battle tank, supported the M60A1-equipped Marines through the destruction of Iraqs armored reserves located behind the obstacle
barriers.
Furthest to the right, JFC-E began moving at 0800 on
G-day, quickly securing initial objectives and continuing
movement to the north supported in part by 16 inch naval
gunfire delivered by a U.S. battleship operating in the Persian Gulf.
XVIII Corps G-day movement began with a massive helicopter air assault by the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division. The assault was accompanied by ground movement
of the 6th French Light Armored Division (supported by the
U.S. 82nd Airborne Division), the 24th Infantry Division, and
the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Following its massive
ground movement, VIII Corps elements crossed the line of
departure, slashing multiple lanes through Iraqi obstacle
belts and continuing their northward attack.
In the center, elements of JFC-N attacked and encountered Iraqi fire trenches, securing initial objectives and
establishing blocking positions to thwart any potential Iraqi
armor counterattacks.
February 25 saw continuing coalition attacks on all fronts.
To the west of the coalition front, XVIIIth Airborne Corps
units continued their supporting attacks to isolate Iraqi
forces.
To that corps right, VIIIth Corps 2nd ACR, along with the
U.S. 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, continued to expand
their attacks north. Meanwhile, the 1st British Armored Division attacked and destroyed Iraqs 12th Armored Division.
In the center, JFC-Ns Egyptian Corps expanded their
bridgehead, capturing quantities of Iraqi troops and equipment in the process.
1 MEF elements continued the attacks they had started
on the 24th. 1st Marine Division consolidated on the newlyseized Al-Jaber airfield and penetrated to within an estimated 10 miles of Kuwait City while 2nd Marine Division
elements continued their attacks with resulting capture or
destruction of nearly 200 enemy tanks.
M551 Sheridans would have been badly outgunned had the Iraqis continued into Saudi Arabia.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 21
Above: Follow on forces of the Army, Marines, and coalition gradually built up to a massive force. Below: U.S. Marines roll into Kuwait City airport.
22 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
Aftermath. The muzzle of a destroyed Iraqi tanks cannon frames oil well
fires lit by the retreating Iraqi forces.
Although continuing its successful attacks northward,
JFC-E movement began to slow somewhat on the 25th due
to huge numbers of surrendering Iraqis who swamped the
prisoner of war processing system.
By the early hours of February 26, retreating Iraqi forces
composed of elements of the Kuwait occupation force as
well as Iraqs III Corps were caught in a gridlock of looted
greed stretching along the main highway back to Iraq. Punishing aerial attacks turned the congestion into a massive
kill zone.
XVIII Corps 24th Mechanized Infantry Division completed a 200-mile desert crossing to reach the Euphrates River
Valley. Together with the penetration of VII Corps units deep
into Iraq, the combat actions anchored the coalition left
flank and completed the encirclement of Iraqi forces in Kuwait and southern Iraq.
JFC-N continued seizing its objectives before elements
turned east to seize the Al-Salem airfield.
1 MEFs 1st Marine Division seized Kuwait International
Airport while 2nd Marine Division secured transportation
nodes to the west and northwest of Kuwait City. To the east,
JFC-E was positioned to lead the liberation drive into Kuwait City itself.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 23
n terms of lessons learned, the land war operations associated with Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm
represent one of the most thoroughly studied military
actions in history.
At the strategic level, ODS marked the first major international conflict of the post-Cold War era. As such, positive lessons stemmed in no small part from the enormous
changes that were taking place in Eastern Europe and the
collapsing Soviet Union. The changes allowed the development of a new American strategy, one focused more on regional threats than bi-polar global conflicts.
The initial pursuit of that new strategy focused on development of a powerful coalition force that extended its ties
far beyond regional borders. The unmistakable success of
the coalition process has led to changes in strategic thinking around the world. In fact, one of the latest examples of
that new philosophy can be found in a growing 21st century
interest in creating regional response forces in Europe and
elsewhere.
More recent conflicts in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo
have only served to reinforce that regional and coalition focus. In fact, regional conflicts are now considered so likely
by senior U.S. military planners that the U.S. Army has created entirely new Brigade Combat Team forces and is preparing to equip those elements with new medium weight
classes of combat vehicle systems.
At the tactical level, many of these critical lessons were
actually recorded and reported at the start of land combat
operations.
A case in point can be found in a newsletter dated August 1990 (No. 90-7). The Special Edition newsletter was
prepared and released by the Center for Army Lessons
Learned (CALL), U.S. Army Combined Arms Training Activity (CATA), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Titled Winning in
24 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
the Desert, the document was being printed for distribution within days of Iraqs invasion of Kuwait.
The first publication was based on the concept that the
principles and fundamentals of combat do not change in the
desert.
By necessity, the first lessons learned product tended
to focus on broad generalities from You cant drink too
much water to Dont play with snakes but served to
pave the way for the extensive harvesting of lessons that
would continue for months and years.
Within a month, for example, CALL had released Winning
in the Desert II (Number 90-8, Special Edition, September
1990), which began to supplement many of the operational and regional generalities with specifics on The Iraqi
Threat and including vehicle bumper markings for some
Republican Guard elements.
The immediacy of lesson assessment continued throughout both Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Moreover, the
rapid dissemination of these lessons took on added importance for the Army and all armed service participants as
the cessation of hostilities happened to coincide with finalization of the FY92 defense budget by defense and Congressional representatives.
This budgetary consideration was highlighted by Army
representatives in a March 13, 1991 document titled Army
Weapons Systems-Performance in Southwest Asia. Citing
as its purpose the relaying of initial, emerging feedback on
the performance of key Army systems in Southwest Asia,
the authors of the six-page paper go on to acknowledge that
As the Army and Congress work together to finalize the
fiscal year 1992 budget, and future budgets, it is important
to consider how well our systems actually performed in the
most realistic, comprehensive operational test conducted
to date Operation Desert Storm.
Above: M1A1 Abrams battle tanks test their guns before taking part in an exercise. Right: The
threat of chemical and biological warfare was taken very seriously throughout the campaign.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 25
26 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 27
28 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
technology of a type found in many microbiology or research laboratories. The subsystems were integrated in an
S-788/G lightweight multipurpose shelter and carried on the
rear of an M1097 series High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled
Vehicle (HMMWV).
By the middle of 1994, the Army had identified and converted a motorized smoke unit to begin training as its first
BIDS-equipped biological defense company.
Along with biological defense needs, ODS also presented the Army with a mandate to accelerate their fielding
of a previously-planned Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical
Reconnaissance System (NBCRS). The M93 was the sixwheeled lightly armored vehicle serving as a rolling laboratory that samples and analyzes air, water, and ground samples for signs of weapons of mass destruction.
The original U.S. Army XM93 NBCRS design was based
on the Thyssen Henschel TPz1 Fox NBC Armored Vehicle
first fielded with the (West) German Army in the mid-1980s.
In March 1990, a team from General Dynamics Land Systems Division (GDLS) and Thyssen Henschel received the
U.S. contract for the Fox System Improvement Program
(SIP). Among other things, the contract called for the production and support of 48 interim configuration Fox vehicles
to be completed by October 1993.
However, less than six months after that contract award
and three years short of the scheduled vehicle deliveries,
U.S. Army elements were tasked for Operation Desert
Shield without a viable NBCRS capability. In response to
the obvious shortfall, 60 Americanized NBCRS systems
were gifted by Germany to the U.S. Armed Forces.
The Americanized vehicles were modified in Germany
to include an integrated U.S. communications and weapon
system, smoke grenade launchers, engineering and other
changes. The completed vehicles were then delivered to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, while U.S. Army troops trained to perform NBCRS functions at the German Army NBC School in
Sonthofen, Germany.
Although performing well in ODS, the 60 Americanized Fox vehicles did not satisfy the Armys February 1991
NBCRS Required Operational Capability (ROC) requirements. As a result, in addition to working in concert with
Thyssen Henschel to produce the 48 basic vehicles designated as limited production urgent fielding, GDLS also
produced 10 vehicles modified to meet ROC requirements.
Those vehicles, designated XM93E1, entered operational testing in the spring of 1994. An additional five basic
systems which the Army had purchased under an earlier
foreign materiel evaluation program brought the U.S. Fox
fleet total to 123 vehicles.
Based on the results of the post-war operational testing
in 1994, the U.S. Army type classified the XM93E1 as the
M93A1 on June 26, 1995, and approved existing Fox systems
for upgrade and fielding.
Secretary Cheneys July 1991 DoD report to Congress
also addressed several lessons learned as a result of ground
operations by U.S. Marine Corps elements. Although ac-
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 29
NAVAL
FORCES
IN THE
GULF WAR
By Norman Friedman
30 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 31
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 33
Above: Underway replenishment of the USS Ranger and the French destroyer Latouche-Treville. Above right: Ships of Task Force 155 during Operation Desert Storm, including the
carriers Saratoga, America, and John F. Kennedy. Below: The Australian guided-missile destroyer HMAS Brisbane. Note the radar absorbent material draped over the ships rails.
34 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
Above: VA-72 Corsairs and VA-75 A-6E Intruders off the USS John F. Kennedy are refueled by an Air Force tanker en
route to targets in Iraq and Kuwait. Right: USS Missouri. Desert Storm was the swan song of the old battleships.
Below: U.S. and coalition warships in Manama, Bahrain just after Desert Storm. The command ship USS Blue Ridge
is at right, with the frigates USS Hawes and what appears to be HMS Boxer astern of her at left.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 35
36 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
For that matter, the Gulf was a potential avenue of access for Iraqi strike aircraft, which might try to avoid
overflying the heavily defended frontier between Iraq
and Saudi Arabia. Because the Iraqi air force did not
choose to contest initial coalition air attacks, it was not
destroyed in the air. Through much of the war, its aircraft
sat in their protected hangarettes, an air force in being
against which the coalition had to maintain considerable
defenses. It might be suspected that the Iraqi air force
was sitting out the war because it was not competent to
challenge the coalition; but that was not certain. Actually destroying the hangarettes ate up air efforts badly
needed against more urgent targets.
The U.S. carrier force in the Gulf guarded against both
forms of flanking air attack. Late in the war its mission
seemed particularly urgent. Once the hangarettes came
under air attack, many Iraqi aircraft suddenly fled to Iran.
Saddam advertised the mass flight as an effort to save his
air arm. If that were accepted, then the air arm could well
be ordered to return to attack the coalition force. It now
seems that the mass flight was just that, an attempt by individual Iraqis to save themselves from the relentless bombardment, but that was by no means obvious at the time.
Carrier-based fighters had to be deployed to deal with this
potential threat.
The carriers role was not merely defensive. They contributed heavily to the massive air attacks carried out
through the war: Overall, naval aircraft contributed about
23 percent of combat sorties, which was roughly their
proportion of coalition combat aircraft. Carriers operated from both Saudi flanks, the Red Sea and the Gulf. By
so doing, they considerably complicated the task of Iraqi
air defense, which otherwise might have concentrated on
aircraft flying directly over the border from Saudi Arabia.
Carrier aircraft also contributed some unique capabilities. The Navys EA-6B Prowler was the best jamming airplane in the Gulf, so it often supported Air Force strikes.
Similarly, the TARPS (tactical reconnaissance) pods
available only to naval aircraft provided the Gulf commanders with their best reconnaissance asset; it had no
Air Force equivalent.
In addition to carrier strike aircraft, the Navy contributed large numbers of Tomahawk missiles, in the first combat use of this weapon. Tomahawk became famous for its
precision; some commentators claimed that it could even
stop at traffic lights to turn up the appropriate streets
towards its targets. In fact only Tomahawks and stealthy
aircraft were permitted to attack targets in Baghdad. The
aircraft could only hit targets their pilots could see, so they
were barred from strikes when the weather closed in. That
left Tomahawks, and they and the airplanes in effect alternated.
In a wider sense, to the extent that the navy could run
freely through the Gulf, it could threaten the seaward
flank of Saddams position in Kuwait. During the war, the
Marines rehearsed a major amphibious landing near Ku-
wait City (in fact this option had been rejected by Gen.
Schwarzkopf, who feared severely damaging the Kuwaiti
seafront). Saddam seems to have expected just such an
attack, and he emplaced a substantial blocking force.
His expectations were presumably strengthened by his
belief that coalition troops could never successfully navigate the trackless desert. Any attempt to outflank him
had, therefore, to come from the sea. Conversely, the very
visible seaborne threat presumably deflected Saddams
attention from the land flank which coalition forces actually struck. The naval threat was made more credible
by an extensive operation to clear the mines Iraqi forces
had sown in the northern part of the Gulf, specifically
to defend against a landing. In this process the cruiser
Princeton and the amphibious carrier Tripoli, the latter
acting as a mine countermeasures command ship, were
damaged. Even though the Marines never made an assault, Saddams defending force could not be reoriented
to reinforce the troops facing Coalition forces coming up
from Saudi Arabia. Even though the Marines invaded Kuwait over land, some of their air support came from Marine Corps Harriers (AV-8Bs) flying from Marine amphibious ships in the Gulf. These ships inherent mobility made
it easy for them to keep step with the fast-moving Marine
force, whereas Harriers ashore would have needed a succession of advanced air fields to keep up.
For his part, Saddam also saw the sea as a possible attack
route. Before the ground war began, he mounted a powerful assault on a border position in the village of Khafji,
which was guarded by U.S. Marines and Saudi troops. The
attack was repulsed with heavy losses. We now know that
the Iraqis planned a seaward flanking movement, using
their small fleet of fast attack craft. U.S. and British naval
helicopters spotted and then destroyed these craft, aborting the flanking movement. Because neither the land nor
the sea elements of the plan was at all successful, the Iraqi
operations were dismissed as quite minor. In fact Saddam
apparently saw them as potentially decisive; if he could inflict heavy enough losses at the outset, he could convince
the Americans and their partners to bargain their way out
of the war. Naval forces contributed heavily to his failure.
Clearly naval forces in themselves did not win the war;
the bulk of combat was done by land-based aircraft and by
ground troops based in Saudi Arabia. However, naval forces were a necessary precondition for the build-up in Saudi
Arabia, and they contributed enormously to the fighting.
Without U.S. seapower, there would have been no war and
no victory.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 37
NAVAL LESSONS
OF THE GULF WAR
By Norman Friedman
38 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
Above: Low tech: USS Wisconsin providing fire support for U.S. Marine and coalition forces against targets
in Kuwait, and (right) A sailor at the bow of the frigate USS Robert G. Bradley watches for mines as the ship
patrols the Gulf.
A carrier depends on factors such as the wind, which may
preclude the same sort of precision. Gen. Horner, the Air
Component commander, rejected the Navys proposal. He
was far more interested in integrating all air operations
over Iraq, whatever their origin. Given such integration,
for example, aircraft could fly apparently random patterns,
converging only at their targets. It would be nearly impossible for an Iraqi air defense commander to concentrate
his resources to defend those targets. This type of attack
required very detailed planning and coordination. Not only
did flight paths have to be set in advance, in great detail,
but also radio frequencies and call signs (so as to preclude
radio interference).
The Air Force had planned this sort of operation for years,
and it had the computers needed to set it up. Once the basic
plan had been set, individual units were given their detailed
orders. That was easy enough on land. However, the carriers
lacked both the communications channel to receive their
orders and the computers to break them down into requirements for individual aircraft; the Navy had never planned to
fight this way. During the Gulf War, the printed copies of the
plans had to be delivered onboard carriers by aircraft flying
from Riyadh, where the plans were developed.
The Navys postwar response was to fit all the carriers,
and many other ships, with higher-capacity satellite links,
using different satellites. The carriers were also
fitted
with computers suitable for receiving and processing Air
Force-style integrated air plans.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 39
40 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
Left: An Iraqi Silkworm missile. Only two were fired, one shot down by HMS Gloucester and the other falling harmlessly into the sea, but the threat remained a
serious one throughout the conflict. Right: Battle damage to a VA-35 A-6E Intruder off the USS Saratoga. A-6s flew more than 4,700 sorties during the war, with
four lost in combat.
ized craft literally search the bottom, foot by foot, examining any suspicious object. Objects classified as mines are
destroyed one by one. The process is extremely tedious.
Worse, the mine hunters are expensive, so they are not numerous. Thus mine clearance is slow, and only one area can
be cleared at a time. That was a particular problem, since
mine clearance was a prerequisite for any amphibious assault. Amphibious attack generally relies on surprise. Typically several beaches can be struck. If the potential victim
of the attack cannot be certain of which beach will be attacked, he has to spread defending forces over all of them.
Indeed, by adopting air-cushion landing craft (LCACs) the
Marines had considerably complicated the enemys task
of identifying likely assault beaches. Any such confusion,
however, would quickly be resolved if mine countermeasures craft spent a few weeks clearing the approaches to
the chosen beach.
The Navy tried an alternative: mine reconnaissance.
After all, Saddam Hussein was laying his mines, prior
to the outbreak of war, in clear view, and he was making
no real attempt to preclude observation. It did not seem
too difficult to determine which areas had been mined.
Coalition warships would simply avoid those places. The
lengthy mine hunting phase could be avoided until after
an initial assault was made. In fact, the two U.S. warships that were mined, U.S.S. Princeton and U.S.S. Tripoli, were in places thought to be clear. Something was
very wrong. Was the entire reconnaissance concept to
blame? Once the ships had been mined, it became much
more urgent to clear the northern end of the Gulf by more
conventional means.
The postwar conclusion was that the concept had not
been disproven. The problem was more subtle. Iraq had
two specialized minelayers, ex-Soviet T-43 class sweeper/
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 41
Note that neither reconnaissance nor mine-hunting applies to the land mines that an enemy has strewn at or above
the low-water mark. They can be laid very quickly, and they
are available in vast numbers. The current U.S. solutions
are physical destruction, either by explosives or by a new
type of laser-directed machine cannon carried onboard a
helicopter.
The Gulf War was the last hurrah for the U.S. battleships
and, by extension, for classical over-the-beach fire support.
Both the decline of the battleships and the manifest problems of mine countermeasures helped spur the Marines
to a very different way of attacking shore targets. In the
past, they planned a mass assault to seize a beachhead on
which their supplies could be massed to prepare for a push
inland. Since an enemy would probably try to defend that
beach, they had to prepare for a classic assault, supported
by heavy gunfire. Without such gunfire, assault might be
impossible if it had to be en masse. The Marines are therefore shifting towards infiltration tactics. Small units will
come ashore, and hopefully few if any will fall victim to any
concentrated enemy mine defense. They will make their
way inland, supplied from small dumps of material. The Gulf
War showed clearly that GPS can help ground units find
their way without landmarks, and GPS is clearly the key to
the small units ability to find the dumps. No concentrated beachhead is needed; the small units concentrate only
when they reach their inland objective. The Marines call this
concept STOM Ship to Objective Maneuver.
There is a hitch. To keep the assault units small, they must
be stripped of as much weight as possible. The Marines organic artillery accounts for much of the weight a unit must
carry with it. The proposed solution is to move the artillery
offshore, onto a new destroyer, the DD 21 (Zumwalt class).
It is not a replacement for the concentrated firepower of the
past; it has nothing like the impact of a battleship, nor is it
supposed to. Rather, it is intended to provide small Marine
units advancing overland with the sort of fire support their
own organic artillery now provides. Other hardware supporting the new tactical concept is the MV-22 Osprey, which
is much faster than current Marine helicopters, hence which
can reach more widely distributed units further inland.
In addition to mines, the Iraqis had coast-defense missiles (Chinese Silkworms) and mobile fast attack craft,
some of them captured from Kuwait. They tried to use both.
Towards the end of the war, two Silkworms were fired at
the battleship Missouri, which was bombarding shore targets. One fell into the water; the British destroyer Gloucester shot down the other. This type of danger had long been
foreseen; many countries have bought coast-defense missiles. As in the Iraqi case, they are generally mobile, hence
difficult to find and neutralize before ships come into
range. In the Iraqi case, the missile had been tracked before it was destroyed, and a UAV was sent back to find its
launcher. Once that had been done, the battleship was able
to demolish it with heavy fire. The larger lesson is that any
amphibious ship needs its own self-defense system. The
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 43
44 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
leaders tanks. This was a secret weapon that made all the
difference, he said.
No sooner had we moved out the minefield lanes than
we came under fire. But the Iraqis expected an attack to
come from the direction of Wadi Al-Batin running along the
Kuwait border. Because of this, Iraqi armored units were
dug in facing south southwest and we came in to their flank
from due west, the general explained. With firing positions oriented the wrong way, they were not in a position
to effectively fire at our armor. Gen. Browns battalion had
42 fully armed tanks in the attack, including a company in
reserve.
It was night and we were using thermal sights to reliably
engage targets out to 2,000 meters, and some targets at
3,000 meters, the general illustrated. We were rolling up
their flanks and they could not present more than a dozen
tanks at a time. In some cases, Iraqi tanks could not rotate
their turrets, which were blocked by the spoil atop revetments. This kept them from firing in other than a generally
forward position. Some Iraqi tanks tried to pull out of their
holes to maneuver, but it was hopeless. Others remained in
their revetments and were passed in the dark because their
was no infrared signature for sensors to detect.
Some enemy tanks pulled out of revetments after Gen.
Browns tanks passed them by, presenting a significant danger from the rear. The Iraqi tanks got between the battalions main body and the reserve company, which was moving up. Tough close-in fighting resulted. In another nearby
VII Corps battalion, an Iraqi tank emerged from a revetment
just as a Bradley fighting vehicle approached. The Iraqi tank
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 45
Above, left: Brig. Gen. John S. Brown, USA, later chief of military history,
commanded a battalion of M1A1 Abrams tanks during the Desert Storm
ground war. Then a lieutenant colonel with VII Corps, his 2nd Battalion,
66th Armor, 1st Infantry Division, conducted a large-scale flanking assault against Republican Guard forces equipped with Soviet-built tanks.
Above, right: Atop a U.S. Abrams M1A1 tank, after battles in Iraq and
Kuwait, then-Lt. Col. John S. Brown, USA, prepares to redeploy. His battalion breached a minefield before flanking a large number of Republican
Guard tank forces, engaging them in fierce combat. Below: An Abrams
training in the desert. Superior, realistic training meant American tank
crews were able to use their technology to its fullest extent.
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 47
STEALTH
48 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
This led to various passive efforts to degrade the performance of radar. The most interesting came from German
research on radar-absorbent coatings, along with structures and shapes that might deflect the electronic beams.
Key among these were the Tarnmatte (camouflage mat) and
IG-Jaumann radar absorbent material (RAM) blankets used
to hide U-boat snorkels while operating near the surface.
There also were some developments in jet-powered flying
wing designs by the Gotha Aircraft Company and Horten
Brothers, which had very low radar cross section (RCS) profiles. All of these fell into Allied hands at the end of World
War II, were examined and analyzed, then quietly put into
storage in favor of more obvious technologies of jet propulsion and guided missiles.
The next three decades saw aircraft designers worldwide
working to improve the speed, performance and weaponry
of combat aircraft, with little thought about their vulnerability to radar detection or guided weapons. Only after heavy
losses to radar-controlled anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and
surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) during Vietnam and the 1973
Yom Kippur War were self-protection jammers and decoys
made standard equipment on tactical aircraft. Vast amounts
of money also began to be spent on development and procurement of radar hunting weapons and aircraft.
The problem was that the Soviet Union and its client
states had something new in their defensive bag of tricks:
the Integrated Air Defense System (IADS). An IADS is a
large centralized data and voice network, with radars, AAA
guns, SAMs, and ground-controlled fighters all tied to a
primary control center. By the 1970s, the Soviets and their
Allies were deploying mobile versions of IADS that could
advance with their field armies under a defensive AAW
bubble, relatively safe from enemy air attack. Thus for
good reasons in the mid-1970s U.S. defense officials began
to look for technologies that might defeat the IADS and perhaps even radar itself.
Strangely, the beginning of the technology that we today
call stealth was to be found in an obscure technical document published in 1962 by a Russian physicist named Pyotr
STEALTH
Northrop Grummans B-2 could be considered second generation stealth.
50 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
STEALTH
cision guided munitions (PGMs) to hit those IADS control
centers and other high-value targets at the center of Sovietstyle military forces. It would carry no defensive armament,
countermeasures, or other system for aerial combat, and
would not even have supersonic speed. Its stealth and the
planned concept of operations would be its armor against
enemy defenses, along with a program of denial, deception,
and black-as-a-coal mine security to keep everyone in the
world guessing just what it was capable of. Even the plans
official designation, F-117A Nighthawk, was classified Top
Secret until a public unveiling in the late 1980s.
A total of 59 production F-117As would be ordered and
delivered, along with the necessary organization and supporting infrastructure needed to make it into a combat warplane. This included building a multi-billion-dollar airbase
near the Tonopah Test Range (TTR) in Northern Nevada
where they could practice their nocturnal combat routines,
and stay as far away from prying eyes and camera lenses as
possible. The Air Force also stood up a new combat wing,
the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) to provide a unit for the
new jets to operate within. The 37th was staffed with some
of the finest personnel in the entire U.S. Air Force hand selected volunteers who always grew weak in the knees when
they first saw the new Black Jets.
New materials, structures, weapons, and other systems
had to be developed to meet the objectives for not only a
minute RCS (about that of a small bird), but also suppression of infrared, ultraviolet, and other telltale emissions.
These new technologies had a vast influence on the stealth
designs begun after the F-117A, including the B-2A bomber,
the AGM-129 cruise missile, and eventually the F-22A fighter. The JSF designs also
owe much of their shapes to
stealth design. There even were spin-offs to existing aircraft
and missile systems. For example, the F-16C Fighting Falcon
and B-1B Lancer both had major reductions in their RCS
thanks to minor redesigns of their shapes and applications
of small amounts of RAS and RAM. Similar improvements
were made to the RGM-84 Harpoon and BGM-109 Tomahawk
cruise missiles, greatly improving their survivability in highly defended AAW environments.
First combat use of the F-117 came in December 1989,
when the 37th TFW was tasked to launch a precision attack
with laser-guided bombs to support a planned special operations snatch of Gen. Noriega of Panama in the early
stages of Operation Just Cause. While the kidnapping operation was cancelled at the last minute, two F-117s flying
non-stop from TTR each delivered a diversionary strike next
to a barracks that was to stun and disorientate elements
of the Panamanian Defense Forces. Press reports later indicated that the Nighthawks had missed their targets, when
in fact they had laid the LGBs exactly where planned. The
other criticism, that the -117s had been used as a publicity stunt, was equally inaccurate. The fact was that at the
time, the 37th TFW was the only active-duty Air Force unit in
the continental United States that was equipped to deliver
LGBs. The rest of the Tactical Air Command (TAC) units that
might have done the job were in the middle of transitioning to new aircraft and targeting systems, and were thus
unavailable.
When Kuwait was invaded in 1990, the 37th was literally
in the middle of a command change, with Col. Al Whitley
taking over from Col. Tony Tolin. In spite of the command being in transition, the 37th was quickly put on alert to send a
squadron of Nighthawks to Saudi Arabia. This was the first
large-scale overseas deployment for the F-117, and the world
was treated to the incredible sight of 22 of the black jets
lined up on a taxiway at Langley AFB, Virginia. The squadron
was getting ready for their trans-Atlantic trip to King Khalid Airbase at Khamis Mushayt, one of the most impressive
and isolated of the third-generation airfields constructed by
the Royal Saudi Air Force. The fine facilities, combined with
excellent support from the U.S. Air Force at home and the
local RSAF authorities meant that Whitley and his troops
could concentrate on getting ready for the coming air cam-
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 51
STEALTH
Perhaps the most deadly late generation stealth aircraft, the Lockheed Martin F-22 follows stealth
practice and carries its weapons in enclosed bays.
52 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
Because the F-117s entire ordinance load is carried internally, and thus limited to just a pair of 2,000 lb. PGMs, it is
vital that every bomb count. This meant that the Nighthawk
was designed from the start to make use of the new thirdgeneration Paveway III LGBs that were developed by the
U.S. Airforce in the 1980s, along with the older Vietnam-era
Paveway IIs. To help keep the F-117 from being detected by
active sensor emissions, the Nighthawk was equipped with
a passive inertial navigation system (INS), as well as a pair
of thermal imaging systems. These Forward Looking Infrared systems (FLIRs, one scanning forward and the other
downward looking) were used to provide updates to the INS
and locate targets during the final bomb runs. These were
usually made at medium altitude (12,000 to 18,000 feet), flying straight and level to the target on autopilot. Once in position, the pilot would line up the downward looking FLIR,
lock up the desired target, and then the weapons system
would automatically drop the weapon. Only then, with the
LGB on the way, would a targeting laser fire and paint the
target for a few seconds to provide the weapon with final
guidance.
Assuming the stealth design of the Nighthawk was effective, the first warning the Iraqis would have of an F-117 attack would be the bomb hitting its target. By flying missions
only at night and careful route planning, there would be
little chance of anything more than random AAA fire being
thrown back at the - 117s. That was the theory at least! The
Paveway-series LGBs were the finest PGMs in the world in
1991, usually able to hit within 3 meters/10 feet of a wellplanned aim point. Even more deadly was the new BLU109 2,000 lb. penetration warhead, that could be mated to
a Paveway guidance kit to create a PGM that could punch
through over 3 meters/10 feet of reinforced concrete. Along
with the more traditional Mk. 84 2,000 lb. general-purpose
bomb warhead, the BLU-109 gave strike planners a formidable array of tools to crack open the critical C3I targets of
the Iraqi government and war machine.
All these capabilities made the 44 F-117As of the 37th
TFW one of the crown jewels of the CENTAF arsenal. Along
with the 66 F-111F Aardvarks of the 48th TFW up the coast
at Taif, the 37th made up the whole precision strike force
of CENTAF, and for that matter the U.S. Air Force worldwide. If those 110 aircraft could not hit the vital strategic,
C3I, and infrastructure targets and destroy them, then Iraq
might well win the coming Gulf War. However, the CENTAF
staff had laid out an air campaign as smart and innovative
as any in history. The entire Iraqi IADS, one of the toughest
ever constructed, would be carved up by a team effort by
CENTAF aircraft of every variety, along with a few Army attack helicopters. The IADS takedown would take place in a
matter of several hours on the first night of the war, and the
STEALTH
Lockheed Martins F-35 echoes the smooth lines and canted tails of the F-22.
THE BATTLE
OF 73 EASTING
54 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
Abrams tanks race across the desert on their way to engage the Iraqis.
was the unit that would bear the brunt of the coming battle
with VII Corps.
As 2nd ACR moved forward, the regiments three squadrons were line abreast from north to south. Each squadron
had two of its three cavalry troops forward, with the other
and a tank platoon in reserve behind. In 1991, armored cavalry troops were company-sized units, each with 9 M1A1
Abrams tanks, 13 M3A2 Bradley cavalry fighting vehicles,
and a handful of M113-based mortar carriers and other vehicles. On the right (south) side of 2nd Squadron/2nd ACRs
(2/2nd ACR) sector was Eagle Troop, commanded by Captain H.R. McMaster. A graduate of West Point, McMaster
was one of the premier young cavalry officers in the U.S.
Army. Aggressive and intelligent, McMaster would eventually turn his graduate thesis into the bestselling book Deriliction of Duty. On this day though, McMaster and the other
2nd ACR troop commanders were feeling their way forward
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 55
Above: The 2nd ACR had to fight in low visibility conditions, such as shown here. Right: The nature of
modern armored warfare made it difficult to reconstruct the Battle of 73 Easting.
56 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M
Iron Troops (to the north and south respectively), had also
plowed into the flank units of the 18th Mechanized Brigade,
and were carving them up. All three troops went on a killing
spree of 120mm and 25mm shells, as well as volleys of TOW2 missiles. By the time it was over, Eagle Troop alone had destroyed over 30 tanks, several dozen armored personnel carriers and trucks, and several hundred Iraqi soldiers. Ghost
and Iron Troops racked up similar totals, virtually vaporizing
the 18th Mechanized Brigade in a matter of about an hour.
American casualties were light, with just a single M3 Brad-
DE SE RT SHI E L D II DE SE RT STORM 57
58 DE SE RT SHIE LD II D ES ERT S TO R M